[7.0 Retribution Paladin] Guide and Discussion

[Redblade]

I'm using zeal. Right now my sim's are saying that the Scarlet chest (which I have) is better for both single target and AoE than Liadrin's. I suspect that's because Liadrin's loses value when you get HP flooded and also because my next highest chest is 885 versus 900 for the ring Liadrin's would replace.

I'd say the chest thing is due to the massive amount of extra strength you'd gain as opposed to minor stats increases on the ring. Sims are based around you playing perfectly which means very little HP loss. Once you have 4 set T20 you basically want to dump HP through TV/DS as soon as you have enough and judgment up. With Liadrin's you need to make sure your opener is planned and take in to account that you get 1 HP on activation. Sure you might waste one or two to accommodate Wake but that should be it.

[Tonyman64]

I'd say the chest thing is due to the massive amount of extra strength you'd gain as opposed to minor stats increases on the ring. Sims are based around you playing perfectly which means very little HP loss. Once you have 4 set T20 you basically want to dump HP through TV/DS as soon as you have enough and judgment up. With Liadrin's you need to make sure your opener is planned and take in to account that you get 1 HP on activation. Sure you might waste one or two to accommodate Wake but that should be it.

I might just stick with the (sometimes sub-optimal) chest, especially given the amount of AoE and cleave in ToS. Maybe once I get a higher ilvl chest maybe that will change.

[Dugna]

And Frost dks got their flat buff with changes, and still no ret........blizz is slow very slow....

[Reith]

And Frost dks got their flat buff with changes, and still no ret........blizz is slow very slow....

Being next to the bottom is worse than being at the bottom lol. At least DKs can change specs to a more viable one. Certainly a lot easier than changing classes and abandoning your character.

[Kuriyama]

"Ret's bottom. Should we give it a re-work?"
"Nah, fuck Paladins. What else is bottom?"
"Frost DK. But they can always swap to Unholy which is quite high"
"Nah, let's give Frost an overhaul. Put off even talking about Ret as long as possible".

Honest to God, FUCK BLIZZARD. Why do I even give them my money again?

[Vuagnon]

sure try arms. he is what ret could have been

I have moved to arms for now. Perfecting its rotation will take some time though. Bad thing is my professions are on my paladin.

[Deleted]

Similar to feral, they are getting a rework because they are completely locked in a single talent combination and everything other than that does horribly.

So please do tell how ret is in an other situation here? How does our variety in talent selection is any different?

[Reith]

A lot of people hate the BoS gameplay yet the BoS gameplay is the only one that is marginally viable. Btw Frost DKs are performing worse than Ret Paladins. Similar to feral,

I stopped it there because that is very telling. Unholy is not too dissimilar from Frost in overall playstyle, while Feral is quite different from the other druid DPS spec. They're not in the same boat at all. Switching to Unholy is not much of a change, seriously.

they are getting a rework because they are completely locked in a single talent combination and everything other than that does horribly.

That is Ret, just to a lesser degree in most cases. The 100 talent row, on the other hand, is waay too stacked in Crusade's favor.

If anything the fact that they did a second rework and that each had a separate post and was in a different PTR build gives me some hope we might get a rework too.

Until I see it, I won't believe it. They have some weird hesitation with changing ret stuff now. They did it at the beginning of legion, but they haven't done any actual mechanic changes since then, only numbers.

[Deleted]

Well I think the difference is, the ret community does not seem to hate Crusade (we hate being very weak in ST, we hate the mastery but not really Crusade) while many Frost DKs loathe BoS.

the community very much hates it´s dependency on crusade. But we know that it is our only chance at competing in any way. Frost in comparison can play a shotgun bild and do not too bad. at least it is not as a big difference as say DP versus Crusade.

[Lumineus]

As someone who plays both, Crusade is nowhere near as cancerous as Breath of Sindragosa. Crusade doesn't require a specific legendary and a trinket to reduce the cooldown of a secondary ability that generates the resources to use it. Crusade doesn't drain our holy power and drop off completely if we leave melee range to avoid a mechanic. Crusade duration isn't dependent on RNG rune procs and RP generation.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Being next to the bottom is worse than being at the bottom lol. At least DKs can change specs to a more viable one. Certainly a lot easier than changing classes and abandoning your character.

Well I did just that and feeling great.
Warrior is awesome, Retribution is not.


This is not the greatest spec in the world
This is just a tribute
Couldn't be the greatest spec in the world, no
This is just a tribute

[Deleted]

As someone who plays both, Crusade is nowhere near as cancerous as Breath of Sindragosa. Crusade doesn't require a specific legendary and a trinket to reduce the cooldown of a secondary ability that generates the resources to use it. Crusade doesn't drain our holy power and drop off completely if we leave melee range to avoid a mechanic. Crusade duration isn't dependent on RNG rune procs and RP generation.

I don't know what the rest believe but Crusade is THE cancer: Does not require any preparation. It requires at least 10 secs of tunneling to ramp up stacks. Then we are left with 20 secs of more tunneling to get some juice out of it. Our on use trinkets and prepots and hero and everything are partially lost. The wings associated leggos make a huge difference much more than if for some weird reason someone picks other talents. All in all I bet that gameplay wise if the dos gap with dp or lolholywrath was less (in the range of 2-3% in simm scripted fights) most would pick the other talents unless they loved to ruin brh or dht till the end of the expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

the community very much hates it´s dependency on crusade. But we know that it is our only chance at competing in any way. Frost in comparison can play a shotgun bild and do not too bad. at least it is not as a big difference as say DP versus Crusade.

U mean competing with frost dks and monks bout last spots right?

[Tojara]

Not sure how Crusade is cancer, at least in the same way as BoS. Crusade has very short ramp up, and just like AW (for those who don't take crusade lol) you get punished for not being able to tunnel during the entire duration. The game play interaction is essentially the same regardless of whether you take Crusade or not. BoS locks you into very specific talent and legendary choices, completely changes the way you play the spec and requires you to tunnel way worse than pretty much any class in the game.

BoS is polarizing much like S2M was polarizing for shadow priests. It changes the way you play the game, and if you don't play it that way you're way worse than the other options available. Retribution doesn't really have a lot of choices in talents either, and you pretty much have to play Crusade, but the reason it's different (at least IMO) is that it really doesn't change the way you play the spec.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't me saying that Retribution doesn't need changes because it clearly does. Talent choices clearly aren't all the interesting.

Personally they should make Crusade baseline and just remove AW for Retribution. Unlike other talents that have come into question for other specs, Crusade really doesn't change the ability too much to the point that someone would hate having to learn Crusade (for all intent and purpose, Crusade is AW 2.0). Balance the class around baseline Crusade and look into improving talents.

I think they got a little scared seeing Retribution in EN/ToV and the beginning of Nighthold. Since then they've buffed other classes and just let Retribution slowly slip away. It's puzzling to me that Retribution is one of the most popular melee classes, but would rather monitor mongoloid retarded warriors more.

[Ryuji]

I wouldn't say that Crusade is cancer, but it is the driving point as to why we can punch pretty well during it and then hit like a wet noodle out of it(though this has been a problem since wings' inception I think, didn't fiddle with min-maxing in BC).

What I don't like is the reliance on wings-affecting legendaries such as Liadrin's and Chain of Thrayn. Liadrin's adds in neat gameplay due to the extra HP generation but it's only during wings, so you throw all your eggs in one basket. Chain is literally just more damage during wings, whoo, doesn't do anything outside of it.

Except, wait, did you just get hit with a mechanic that requires you to move out of melee range or you'll blow someone else up? RIP your wings or pot uptime. Sure you could've waited to use it until after said mechanic went off(unless it's annoying like KJ's mechanics and hits multiple people with multiple things), but having to rely *SO* much on one cooldown bothers me.

Every single spec and class has a main cooldown, I understand this. Some specs live or die on whether or not they got enough oomph out at the right time while they were using said cds. That can be challenging and rewarding if you do well with it, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, some specs inherently rely so much on their cooldown(s) that it is what defines them.

I honestly just wish Divine Purpose was baseline, Holy Wrath was either a PvP only talent or removed(promotes bad mechanics behavior to use it well in PvE) and that Crusade was just baseline for Ret, though it was at max stacks from the beginning(possibly at less max stacks or something to make up for the immediate damage boost possibly, Idunno). Or even bring back Exorcism just for a proc to do something instead of the same rotation regardless of talent choices.

It bothers me to look at logs and see hardly any talent changes for fights.

Usually you will see:

Final Verdict always because the other two just aren't worth it.
Fires of Justice or Zeal, hardly if ever Greater Judgement.
Fist of Justice and Blinding Light as options. Usually Blinding Light due to the pseudo aoe interrupt.
Blade of Wrath and Divine Hammer depending on whether or not there's cleaving to be done, Virtue's Blade never picked.
Justicar's Vengeance or Eye for an Eye, hardly if ever Word of Glory.
Since Divine Intervention got nerfed slightly, it's either that or Cavalier for more movement, never Judgement of Light.
Crusade and Crusade only, under any circumstance, ever.

There's so many talents that just flat out are not used aside from messing around doing world quests, leveling up, some cc situations etc.

[Temna]

On a non rework topic, may I ask how people are talenting in the Tomb so far? Reason I'm asking is I was thinking about not using DH on Kil'jaeden and mainly focusing on singling him down but swaping to Storms when the adds pop and was questioning the value of it. Fights like Haj, Mistress, and Host to me seem obvious DH fights, just not so sure oin Kil'jaeden

[Redblade]

I wouldn't say that Crusade is cancer, but it is the driving point as to why we can punch pretty well during it and then hit like a wet noodle out of it

Which is why it's cancer.

(though this has been a problem since wings' inception I think, didn't fiddle with min-maxing in BC).

Wings has never been the problem with ret before, it's only this incarnation with Crusade where it's caused issues. Hell last expansion we even had three charges for wings during the last tier and it was fine. The problem with Crusade is how it stacks both damage and haste and due to that is at least twice as strong as it should be according to Blizz. And if something is twice as strong as it's supposed to be it also means everything else you do needs to be weaker than it's supposed to be in order to compensate.

They should just remove Crusade, move Holy Wrath to PvP talent and re-design the whole talent line except DP. The three charges of Wings was great in HFC and is one possibility as a talent. The old execute with Hammer of Wrath was one of the more iconic ret things which could be brought back as a talent if it wasn't for "class fantasy" what ever the fuck that even means beyond "How we justify unwanted changes here at Blizzard".

Crusade is probably one of the least imaginative talents in game...

[Deleted]

U mean competing with frost dks and monks bout last spots right?

yes go and play with DP you will start to compete with tanks. Forst non BoS specc still stronger than ret non crusade specc

- - - Updated - - -

On a non rework topic, may I ask how people are talenting in the Tomb so far? Reason I'm asking is I was thinking about not using DH on Kil'jaeden and mainly focusing on singling him down but swaping to Storms when the adds pop and was questioning the value of it. Fights like Haj, Mistress, and Host to me seem obvious DH fights, just not so sure oin Kil'jaeden

https://imgur.com/a/EIe27

ret discord has all the answers

[Deleted]

@Temna

KJ fight is really tricky. Even with the correct talents/leggos u can get rekt by the soaking, especially if you are soaking both big and small armag.

With that said, Zeal + BoJ will value higher than DH cuz p3 has no cleave at all. But i've seen some crazy dps both live and on logs with DH combined with the trinket from sisters.

As i said though, in my experience at least -on heroic- ST is the way to go but soaking can fuck you up bigtime.

[killwithpwr]

I dont believe the problem is in the spell "Crusade", rather it is in our ability to prolonge it for 37 seconds which makes it way to long and to powerfull to start buffing our regular damage.
If they would have gottwn rid of the trait and buffed our overall damage, DP might have a fighting chance...
At least i think it will.

Theres also the Solsacra suggeation of buffing our Mastery to be competitive, which will even out our dmg with other specs and make the Tomb gear a lot more enjoyable to procure...

Oh, and Retribution passive... Must go. (at least the dmg buff)

[Deleted]

Crusade has grown into cancer because of the total class design. Do i like the talent : not so much specially since it requires hard tuneling and gear/relic/leggo tuning to work favourly. If i could decide about it i would keep it for farmed content for those "lets try and parse" nights that help keep your sanity after running same raid instance for 20 times.
Reasons to like it : erm dunno Most probably the haste effect that allows you to hit fast finishers after ramping it up making the needto judge a bit irrelevant. And thats all.
Reasons not to like it: 1. Need to run brh/dht/anomaly like madman hoping to keep the relics and the weapon relevant since the value of prolonging the crusade is huuuge --- much more than any other talent/specc in game. I dont know if there is another specc that favours relics of 15 ilvls less but i bet retri is one of the few.
2. Need to focus ones leggos for crusade/wings damage output. (namely thrayn and liadrin.) Btw to avoid objections blizzard helped towards that as well : cloak was nerfed. And tbf to the community when the chance came and although the output is marginally lower mythic raiders changed to cloak+highlord or belt+ highlord --- even impairing the t19+t20 combo by doing the former.
3. You need to hard tunnel for almost 1/3 of the fight else you screwed , not only for parsing but for everything : this is the first expansion this happens and coupled by the awful mobility it is even more annoying. Every time you hit that button (for which you have concentrated all your eefforts and gear) you need to tunnel for 10-12 secs to get the stacks up and then you need 20 secs of more tunnneling to njoy the fruits of your hardships : is this cancerous in a raiding environment : hell yeah. Does it pay in general output: hell no but this is a different discussion. Every time you need to avoid hitting that key because of incomin mechanics ending up in less use or to be more precise less SECONDS of crusade something bleeds inside you.
4. By the way is it clever or intriguing gameplay : no and no
5. Does it synergize well with hero and prepot : no.
TLDR my POV : Crusade is problematic and requires hard work and tuning and there would be no need to specc into it unless someone would be interested in some good parsing during farmed content . I dont see how Crusade is much more different than BoS towrds that end. However there is one huge difference : Crusade is the only viable solution by a large margin and what we do to optimize (the gearing , the set up, the tunnelin whining to our raidleader for mechanics etc) results in fighting for the last spots in st and top average in aoe. If we chose to spec into something else or avoid all the fuzz or get different leggos then as mentioned befor ewe would fight with tanks/ disco priests for dps.
Please do not ask for it to become baseline again. Its the worst idea ( think same level as holy wrath talent inception or hammer of wrath removal).
Retribution although the pile of shit is one of the most popular speccs in game (number of parses speaks for itself). Blizzard should be thinking of how to work something proper for these players. All these guys that appear in videos etc should be a bit more vocal and express the issues and concerns in a better and more demanding way: Blizz has bathed us in shit this expansion more than ever hitting us with their nerfbat all the time as well. There is no need to be polite or patient. Straightforward is the way. Same about people writing guides . (i still cannot understand how there is a guide proposing holy wrath as a solid alternative with the con's of encouraging dangerous gameplay ---. introduce me to your dealer plz).